Heat Ray Gun Fails Final Test; Nixed From War

eldavojohn writes "The heat ray gun to be deployed in Afghanistan has failed its final test and will not be deployed. US military commanders who have had it in the field now have declined to use it. After being tested more than 11,000 times on around 700 volunteers, it failed to achieve satisfaction from the military and will not be deployed."

Comments

Proving once again

[Anonymous Coward]

That we should have been investing in either freeze or death rays.

Re:Proving once again

[darkfire5252]

I know this was intended as a joke, but it does prove something about the 'heat ray' that is rather important: the military-industrial PR machine is operational and effective. This weapon is not a 'heat ray' at all; it is a _pain_ ray. The microwaves emitted by this device may cause some incidental heating of the skin, but that is not the intent at all. The microwaves emitted are of the precise frequency used by pain-emitting neurons. The goal is to have to pain neuron fire at full capacity regardless of the actual level of damage being caused. An article from 2007 ( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-482560/Run-away-ray-gun-coming--We-test-US-armys-new-secret-weapon.html ) describes this and introduces the idea of a pain ray... 3 years later the military is celebrating its 'heat ray,' a term which is less associated with the evils that can be caused by a 'pain ray.'

Not to worry!

[Cornwallis]

I'm sure these things will start showing up in U.S. police departments soon enough.

Re:Not to worry!

[cgenman]

Don't forget the woman who was bean-bag gunned to death at a Red Socks victory rally.

I liked lethal force. Either it got used, or it didn't. Generally it didn't. All non-lethal force has done is change situations that would have been deflated peacefully into situations where people start firing non-lethal guns at each other. Or, rather, police start firing "non-lethal" guns at unarmed civilians, sometimes maiming and sometimes killing them.

Re:Not to worry!

[DocSavage64109]

Try having some tinnitus before you mock hearing damage. It's like listening to squealing crt tubes 24 hours a day for the rest of your life.

The summary's wrong.

[ravenshrike]

It didn't fail any tests at all, it was merely not deployed. I can think of multiple reasons not to deploy this. The biggest being that it is really only useful as crowd control during riots, and even then could be relatively easily taken out. There's also the fact that leaving enemies angry enough to shoot at you alive would seem to be a bad idea. Since the US military, the only people using the tech, would not have enough manpower to roundup all the people they used this against, all it would do is cause greater US casualties in the long run.

Re:The summary's wrong.

[MozeeToby]

I think that's fair enough, if the soldiers in the field don't want it I would call that failing the final test. And besides that, it isn't really that great of a deterrence weapon, especially during a riot. Imagine you've got a thousand people, 20 rows deep moving in on an embassy and you shoot this off. Only the first row is going to get the full force of the weapon, people farther back might get little to none. Now you've got a bunch of people getting hit, probably trying to turn and run but can't because the people behind them keep pushing forward. If nothing else, the weapon has never been safety tested for such a scenario. It would be more useful to keep a small group of apparently unarmed people from approaching a location, but it seems overkill for that situation, especially because it doubtless takes time and effort to deploy. So you end up only using it in situations (rare situations to boot, when was the last time a mob attacked a US military base or embassy?) where it is practically guaranteed to be ineffective.

Re:Final report

[bluefoxlucid]

The truth is that as much as the military is against non-lethal weapons, they can actually save lives on both sides and help in the winning of the war at the same time because you have less casualties which tend to cause the other side to galvanize against you.

Not really.

The truth is "conditioning" pisses people off. Useless missions to touch the edge, raze some troops for non-tactical entertainment, and run off are a good way to show the enemy that we're completely evil and have no respect for life. Defending our borders and encampments is fine; but dipping into enemy lines just to do some damage and run is not.

Unfortunately, any useful military strategy involves penetration. While defending our encampments has obvious tactical advantages, those encampments are worthless if they don't support military motion. Thus, our military is of the predisposition to advance through enemy resistance onto a target.

In any non-lethal strategy, we have problems. If the enemy is allowed to retreat, they will increase resistance further ahead: the 500 troops facing us at the next battle become 1000 troops. If the enemy is left for dead, they trap our troops in a pincer maneuver: the enemy troops immediately behind us don't have to mobilize for interception far ahead, and can prevent our retreat and attack from behind when we encounter more resistance. Alternately, we can take prisoners of war; this is a lot of prisoners to deal with though, quickly mounting to several times the number of active troops.

Thus, the only viable military strategy to win a war is to advance through enemy resistance, inactivating troops we encounter-- that is, killing them or butchering them to uselessness (remove limbs). For those being invaded, a repelling defense eventually wears out the political atmosphere and economics of the invader; but a decapitation exercise is a better strategy for either side. In either case, lethal force is necessary: invaders that don't die will continue to attack until you die for quite a while, without eroding the political atmosphere anywhere near as quickly as casualties.

Re:Final report

[cgenman]

If you're conducting a house-to-house search for malefactors, GET OUT OF THAT WAR. That should be a domestic problem to be handled by local authorities (with assistance if necessary, but it shouldn't be). If the population is harboring the resistance, that means you do not have popular support of the local population. If you do not have support of the local population in a war zone, you are the bad guys.

This is Afghanistan we're talking about here. They're a bit of a mess to begin with. We can give the locals the tools to build their society with (education, experience, seed funding), but we can't make them shape their society in the way that we choose.

And for god's sake stop giving guns to Israel. The promise of sweeping in and stomping North Korea if they invade the south has been a sufficient deterrent for years. Israel is seen as the spoiled brat invader of the middle east, and for good reason. We'd achieve our same objectives in the region, with far less hatred from the locals, if we just promised to defend Israel instead of giving them the helicopters that they kill Palestinians with. Everyone comes out of that conflict smelling like ass, and by sticking our nose into it we're just feeding the hatred.

I have relatives on the east side of the middle east, who are shocked how little Americans realize that Israel is a big part of the anti-American hatred. It's not the jewishness, or the western-ness. But the behavior of Israel as a government interacting with their neighbors, their invasions, their annexations of territory, suppressions of the Palestines, etc. Our goals for winning hearts and minds, and therefore getting out of the middle east faster with less likely of further terrorist attacks against the US, would be much better served by cutting all military and other aid to Israel, and simply promising military support in cases of an unprovoked attack against Israeli soil.